CIVALLI on Rip Off Britain- What happened since the last appearance?
All images on this page are Screen Grabs from Rip Off Britain 2016 Live- Episode 4
Further to the CIVALLI appearance on Rip Off Britain, September 22rd 2016 the show takes a brief look at 'what's happened since' the last show!
Some promising news was announced on today's live show.
In Series 8, Episode 9 Paul from Lancashire and Karen from Preston were visited to share their experiences surrounding their plight after having cavity wall insulation installed. Pauline Saunders, CIVALLI visited them at their home to investigate.
In the last show, Rip Off Britain filmed Pauline in discussion with Paul and Karen, discussing the options that they had moving forwards. Both had found themselves opting in to the installations of cavity wall insulation having been informed that they would save on energy bills and have warmer homes. It had come as a great disappointment to discover that the installations had not worked for them, leaving them in dire straits. Mould and damp problems had begun to surface.
In today's live show Rip Off Britain announced, in their own words, 'some great news'- a company came forward offering the two families free extractions. The kind offer had been made for the insulating material to be removed, this can cost homeowners thousands of pounds if the work is not covered under guarantee. The offer for both Paul and Karen came about after the show was aired in September.
Paul said "it's several thousand pounds to have it removed and at least three days worth of work, for somebody to make that sort of gesture in time and money is very, very kind. We are just looking forward to having the stuff out because it has caused us a lot of stress".
CIVALLI recognises this to be a positive outcome for the families appearing on the show. However CIVALLI also note, there is much to be improved within the retrofit cavity wall insulation industry in order to benefit victims on a wider scale and in an attempt to avoid these unfortunate situations arising in the first place.
Extracting insulating materials is only the start, there is much further consideration that needs to be given to these cases before the families can try to reassemble their lives. There is the matter of waiting to identify if there has been any damage to non visible areas of the buildings and also the obvious clean up, drying out and decorative repair that will be required. Defective installations can bring families into despair, what was once their safe haven, a place to retreat to, had become a place that induced anxiety causing both mental and physical ill health and distress.